Looking for ideas on inventory management without 2D hud

#1 I forget the name, but there was a zombie game where when you wanted to get objects, your character would look inside their jacket at all the items. You could do the same thing, looking inside a pack, or focusing the camera on a belt or holster or whatever. Highlight the items you want, add generic animations to grab items from general areas, and basically do everything like you'd do in the real world. You could have the same inventory mechanics, but using the actual in-game character and item models to represent things instead of a 2D GUI.

#2 ....

#3 That sounds a bit like what i had in mind Ted, do you remember the game? i would be very interested in seeing how they pulled it off.

#4 Don't remember the name of the game, just the screenshots, and a strip that VGCats did on it.

#5 I tried to skim the entire VGcats comics history and couldn't find it.

Anyone has any idea what game this was?

#6 Resident Evil of some sort. The one that sucked.

#7 It was the new Alone in the Dark game. You should be able to pick it up pretty cheap used.

Amazon link for the 360 game

#8 Here is a video showing the player opening the jacket and seeing the inventory:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqysNanO20

#9 That's a really impressive looking system, but the way they implemented it suggest to me that it's very specific to this outfit and that the character probably doesn't change outfit ever.

The system i'm trying to put in place is based on nested containers.


The player itself is a container with specialised inventory slots:
Backpack slot, jacket, shirt, belt, pants, shoulder slung weapons...

Some objects have their own inventory slots, for example a backpack add generic storage spaces, while a belt add special "belt clip" slots where you can attach pouches, holsters, magazine pockets, etc...

Some inventory objects add one or more "active" slots, which adds the object placed in it (if they can be used directly) in the player's "weapon" selector:
-pant pockets are active slots, you could put food in it or a few shotgun shells to have them readily available.
-a belt with a holster on one of it's belt clip slots allow you to store a pistol and have it added to the weapon selector


Now this is all fine and dandy but i really would like to avoid a bloated 2D interface, simply because ... we are in 2011 and the game i believe should happen inside the game, not on the screen surface.

#10 I love your posts on immersion. I've been following your topics for a long time now.

The container concept is what was done in Ultima VII for containers (and I believe VI, but it has been a while). It was extremely easy to lose items so they aligned them to a grid in VII:Part Two. While aligning them to a grid gave up some of the immersion, it also solved inherent player problems (and engine problems) in finding items and accurate selection and grabbing of items.

Sometimes things that are less "real" are better gameplay decisions then artificial immersion schemes. The interface was interesting in AitD, but it didn't add much to the gameplay or immersion of the experience.

One of the core difficulties with immersion is that people are really bad at navigating 3D spatial systems with a 2D intermediary. Sit someone down with Blender or Max and walk them through selecting faces in a complex object. It is not intuitive and is something that they have to be trained to do. They have to know the rules before they can understand how to perform the action.

Much of the difficulty with immersion on the level that you have been investigating (for quite a while!) is a chicken and the egg problem. We want the system to be natural and "just work" so as to not remove them from the world we create for the player, but we are dealing with clunky interfaces (mice, keyboards, monitors, joysticks, etc) that provide inherent barriers to creating natural immersion.

Anyway, sorry to jump off-topic here, but it got me thinking this morning as most immersion and game balance topics tend to do.

#11 I think one of the keys to having an experience that is very immersive is less what the player is seeing on the screen and more how they are interacting with the game. Having a 2d image pop up on the screen is less jarring if the actions I have to take are smooth and natural. If I have to stop and think about it, "What was the inventory key again?", or "How do I get to my belt slots?" that is what takes me out of the experience. If my mind thinks I need to access my inventory, and I am able to naturally and fluidly do that, then the immersion is likely to stay.

Sometimes I can even find the things developers do to not have a GUI more distracting then if they simply had one. For example, it always bothered me in Dead Space how the spine of the suit was the health, and there was a meter on the back for the slow motion power. That was all great for me to see easily, but it made no logical sense. The person wearing the suit can't see those indicators. Why would they be put there?

We are also trying to go as HUD-less as possible in our game, but I've found, like David pointed out, that sometimes it's just better to pop something up on the screen.

#12 I see what you mean Eric, a 2D interface would clearly be more simple.

The initial idea i had was a classical inventory screen with paperdoll where you would see your core slots (clothes) and if those items had their own storage it would be displayed too a bit like a tree, with a grid system ,diablo style to handle the volume restrictions.

But those inventory screen take a lot of space and i felt that if i'm going with the no hud approach for the guns, health, stamina and the like these would in essence be pretty much the only hud in the game.

Another idea was to use a standardised/non modular backpack system that can be unfolded in 3D a bit like a bedroll, this would work as long as everything is kept perfectly standard, which again won't work with the current design for my inventory system because it uses numerous storage objects extending the carrying capacity of the player.

Also, in UO you would drag and drop items from the game world to your backpack, which was fine since it was all 2D, but doing this in a 3D world with no top down view..., the only way i can see is to make it so the game will try to plac ethe new object in the free space in your inventory and inform you if it can't do so.

That or it put it in your hand and it's up to you to find a proper storage slot.

#13 That last idea is what I'm working with - I really dislike silly 'you can't fit that item in your inventory' messages when my inventory is full but my hands are empty. The way I've implemented it involves you taking an item, then pressing 't' to stow whatever you have in your hands. If there's no inventory room for it you get notified. Not sure how that approach will work when I mix in dual-wielding...

As for the HUD itself, I've not thought of a good way to remove it for inventories. At the moment I've also set up multiple storage 'locations', each with its own size restriction. You select items by pressing the number key corresponding to that location. Basically the way HL2's inventory works, except things are sorted into locations instead of weapon classes.

AitD did seem like a very cool system - I've not played the game, but all I've heard about it is that people found the inventory access obtrusive. You whisk open your coat and stand still every time you need to switch weapons, etc, which sounded like it quickly got tiring. I agree with what Eric said - immersion is often just the barrier between intention and action. I can stick my hand into my pocket, or even a backpack, without looking - and I should be able to do the same in the game.

That's what I've tried to do with the HL2-style inventory selection - ultimately though I do want to introduce some sort of inventory 'screen' for arranging items in locations manually. Representing actually taking your backpack off and shuffling things around.

#14 That's some pretty cool stuffs you have there, it has some common ground with what i had in mind in some way.

I'm trying to limit the amount of keys however,the way i had in mind was that basically any "items in "active" mount points can be selected with the scrollwheel classic fps style.

My problem is mostly on how to "present" the informations for allowing to rearrange the inventory.